Wednesday, May 18, 2011

"We Are The Night" U.S. trailer

Of the many crimes the "Twilight" phenomenon has committed against genre fiction and the vampire-subgenre in particular, by far the worst is it's very conscious attempt to suck the decadence and debauchery right out of the whole enterprise. Seriously, think about it: Co-opting a fictional creature that functions almost exclusively as a sex-metaphor as fodder for abstinence propaganda? That'd be genius satire... except Stephenie Meyer isn't joking.

Fortunately, the "fun part" of the bloodsucker genre proves hard to kill. Below, the U.S. trailer for "We Are The Night," a German production that just got picked up for a stateside run under the IFC Midnight label...

The basic pitch seems to be: "What if Paris, Kim, Lindsay etc's ability to 'survive' in the fast-lane was that they were a coven of lesbian vampires?" I've heard worse ideas, and I like how "big" it looks - i.e. it's not just the low-end sofcore cheapie they could've made - and of course that German filmmakers are unlikely to wimp-out on the good stuff.

Bob, is it possible for you to mention things vampire related without going on some grudge based tangent on Virgins?

It's understandable as to why one would compare vampire material to Twilight every now and again, and I could also understand why a guy like you would get pissy when a girl decides not to put out, but that doesn't mean you have to type up an extra paragraph dedicated to hating the idea of saving yourself before marriage every time you want to update us on how vampires are being treated in the media.

Agreed with TheAlmightyNarf, Robert, you missed the point: there's nothing wrong with Abstinence, but turning a fictional creature that was a repressed society's version of anywhere between just sex and rape play (which even now is pretty out there) into the figurehead for Abstinence is quite brilliant/ridiculous.

Nothing wrong with abstinence, he's not saying that. What he IS saying is that equating it to some kinda holy standard that must never be broken or else you're worthless as a human being and must be eaten by bogeymen is NOT okay. Though getting into vampire mythology (which was mostly derived from Hammer and Universal more than folklore) the series that must not be named is definitely out of place and is totally deserving of all its criticisms.

OK, I love the concept of ancient conspiracies, supernatural or otherwise, as a fictional device, even as I recognize they're complete BS in reality. Maybe it's from decades of playing White Wolf's tabletop & LARP games.

What annoys me is when these conspiracies are so easily brought down by some neophyte just off the street in a matter of weeks or months when hordes of soldiers, politicians, police, lawyers, reporters, clergy or scientists couldn't. This trailer implies that the immortal vampires never had a contingency plan for one of their own being wracked with guilt and squealing to the authorities. That seems idiotic to me.

I do find the whole Twilight anti-vamp thing quite interesting. See if you were to, I dunno, 'overthink' the twivamps they don't just subvert the whole sex metaphor (both through Cullen's refraining from sex & biting) but also the entire 'aristocratic decadence' thing, which I see as the other main facet of vampire symbolism. For example, their home being elegant rather than decadent and playing into more upper middle class than aristocratic motifs. Plus the fact that when they're brought out into the light, they shine rather than decay, the symbolism being that, under examination, these vamps reveal their hearts of gold (or diamond) rather than the moral decay usually hidden from view.

And, in my opinion, such subverting of the film vampire mythos is not necessarily a bad thing. Still object to Twilight, but more for the laughably silly plots & absolutely hideous character of Bella than anything it does to the symbolism of vampires. It's just that this take on vamps should not have entered pop culture in this vehicle.

Interesting comment - I don't usually hear of the aristocratic and parasitic nature of vampires as a metaphor for class warfare as much as the sexual angle. And I never considered before now that the Twilight books would be subverting that.

Makes me wonder what to make of a book series that subverts it though. Should I be raging at it as some sort of validation/defense of group privilege? Or is it projecting the author's belief in some sort of noblesse oblige? Certainly the books themselves don't justify that degree of analysis; but the fact they've entered the popular culture to such a degree does.

Tip Jar (y'know, if you feel like it)

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About Me

Bob is a part-time independent filmmaker, part-time amateur film critic and full time Movie Geek. He is heterosexual, a pisces, and a severely lapsed Catholic. He is a tireless enemy of censorship, considers his personal politics "Libertine" and enjoys acting as a full time irritant to overly serious people of ALL political stripes.